Christmas hijacked pew edition

“Christmas Hijacked”

A Christmas Contract

Canon Graeme Winterton Holy Trinity Kew 27th. Dec 2015

Let me ask you to make a Christmas contract with the Lord right now.

It has a twofold purpose:

The Commercial Message

1. To keep the focus upon the foundation principle, the underlying first cause of the Christmas celebration, the essential fact that the season celebrates God’s unspeakable gift of love in Jesus.

1.

Christmas has been celebrated for centuries, and over the years, quite naturally, the form and expression of the celebration has changed.

One would expect it to happen - just as customs within families change with the generations as each person develops a different way of doing the same thing.  Examples: Britain - Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol; Holy and Ivy, Caroling in the Village ;  Europe -Santa Claus - Snow ice, sleigh rides Christmas trees;  America - Kris Kringle - and the world’s biggest Christmas tree in Times Square;  Australia - Where else would you find Pavlova and Prawns on the BBQ and artificial snow and frosted window panes in 40 degree heat?

2. To assist the Church to ensure that Christmas is not hijacked, secularised or taken over within the life and practice of the church itself. (For example - Let us not allow commercial pressure and business to push Advent into oblivion by Christmas carols and partying before Christmas arrives) Here are the clauses:

A Christmas Contract 1. I will not compromise or water down the

Christmas message.

2. I will not replace ‘Christmas’ with generic secular

words and greetings.

3. I will take particular care to pass the Christmas

story on to children and children’s children.

4. I will keep the flame burning and share the true

meaning of Christmas with all whom my life touches.

2.

There is always a danger that the original reason, the foundation principle, the underlying first cause of a celebration may be lost. The danger is that the celebration becomes the main event and all too easily ends up like Chinese whispers as having nothing to do at all with the first cause. This is what has happened with Christmas! Christmas has been hi-jacked! - secularised - taken over by commercial interests.    

Examples: Myer windows have little if anything to do with the Christmas story – Fantasy and fiction; Televised Community Carols include an occasional Nativity carol in the mix of Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red Nosed reindeer to make it appear like Christmas; Christmas trees being sold in Moslem Iran; I noted in a previous year’s 'Carols from Kings College' that Kings appears to have bowed to the pressure of international commercial TV and watered down the Christian content. — postmodern sentimental readings replaced most of the scripture and the blessing excluded all reference to God Father Son and Holy Spirit in a watered down dismissal that could not offend Moslem, Jew or atheist.

3.

Where will it end? Perhaps Christmas will become like a huge birthday party. Years ago, before I entered the ministry, a staff member came in with an almighty hangover and said; 'Christmas is a great time to celebrate, but for the life of me I don't know what we celebrate!' - He was serious! He just didn't know!

The Eternal Message 4.

The message of Christmas has been proclaimed for two thousand years! The message has not changed — Jesus entered the life of the human race on the first Christmas. He was born to fulfill a Divine mission.

To inaugurate the Kingdom of God. He came to ‘seek and to save’ lost fallen imperfect humanity. The Lord Christ has been building his kingdom through the centuries.

5.

It is as Jesus told Pontius Pilate, a kingdom not of this world, it is a kingdom drawn from this world in a programme of constant recruitment, a kingdom that reaches into the eternity of being beyond time.

All who believe and trust in Jesus are a part of that kingdom. They are changed different people with values, understandings and goals, very different from the life style and views held by all who choose not to join them.

6.

It is from here, from within his kingdom, that the Christ message is proclaimed and celebrated. It is proclaimed in word and it is proclaimed in action. The words are the words of the angels, the words of the prophets and the words of the teaching of Jesus • Redemption - He came to die to save the world.

• Peace- He is the only path to peace - turning the hearts.

• Joy - Transforming pain and suffering.

• Love - He gives beyond measure and helps us share it too • Hope - He is the promise of new and better things.

• Eternal life - ‘I will come and take you to myself; Because I live you shall live also.’

The Living Message 7.

The people of his community will never change the message.

Historically Christians have been scoffed at, spurned, vilified, persecuted and have given their lives for their Lord ( his people in some places still

suffer in those ways) The action is the action of the living example of Jesus and the actions of the living example of his believing people.

8.

Compassionate care remains the constant and dominant expression of Christian life - personally and through community. Christians have always been intimately involved in all fields of human endeavour which upholds life and the well being of others. In many cases commencing ways and institutions we take for granted and have been taken over by the secular state.  Examples. Medicine, hospitals, education, social welfare foreign aid, counselling and pastoral care.

All of this - The words and the actions - are central to the life of Jesus and his people. All of it is of the essence of the Kingdom and is the fundamental underlying reason for twelve days of Christmas celebration.

9.

And so here we are, celebrating Christmas again! 

Let us never forget that we celebrate Christmas with the great multitude who have lived before us, who watch this weary world and wonder when the time will be for it all to end.



Let us never forget that these witnesses of the generations have passed the telling to you and me; and especially let us ensure we never forget those exceptional people whom we have known and loved who faithfully proclaimed the eternal message and inspired us by their wisdom, teaching, example encouragement and care.

10.

They are with us constantly in what is known as ‘the Communion of Saints’ – they are part of the eternal company with whom we join in a very special way when we say: “therefore with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven - Holy Holy Holy - heaven and earth are filled with your glory” — 11.

Now, that’s what I call a party! What a way to celebrate!

Everyone present, no absentees, Christmas with everyone who has entered the kingdom and lives life within it – all so glad to be part of such a people to share in such a magnificent task of sharing the message of the kingdom.